Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Since Jordan was 'self-employed' for much of last year, I had checked into the rules for taxes and even called the IRS to see if we needed to pay 'estimated taxes' (where you pay in advance since you don't have taxes being taken out of your paycheck). They told me that for our specific circumstance we wouldn't need to pay, but when I went to file our taxes, it still showed we had a penalty of about $120 - I figured, lame, but probably nothing we could do.

But, we just got a letter in the mail ( I panicked when I first saw it, just sure I'd messed up and we were getting audited again...) saying they'd refunded the penalty and today we got a check in the mail for the whole amount. Hooray! Who would have ever thought the IRS could be so nice?

I was thinking the other day how nice it is that Landon is not a picky eater. It's pretty rare that we have something for dinner that he doesn't want to eat. Telling Jordan this, I realized that our success in Landon eating so non-pickily is probably more just because I'm such a picky eater. I'm not such a fan of most veggies so it takes some real work to try to get myself to eat them (shredded squash I've found is pretty flavorless so I can hide it in lots of things). Sadly Landon's not just a great veggie-eating toddler so much as I need some help in the veggie-eating area! :)

ANd just a funny thing -- I think that Landon must have seen something in one of his movies because one day he just started saying "Vegetables are not for Landon!" or "You like broccoli Mommy? ('Yep, I like broccoli') Egh! Broccoli is not for me!"

Everything is just coming back to life around here. This is our little peach tree in the back yard -- 2 weeks ago and then 1 week later -- it seems crazy to have snow and springtime so mixed up with each other! Now this tree has bright red tulips opened up all around the base of it too. :)

We had a busy couple weeks with lots of fun visitors -- Drew came down from Washington to meet Ellie for the first time. He and Jordan got to have some good coding party time, so Jordan was especially happy. :) And Landon loved getting to play with Uncle Drew. April had a conference close by so we got to spend time w/ her too -- what a great aunt she is to our little kiddos! And, my Dad and Shauna even took some of their vacation time to come out for a visit from North Carolina -- it was great to see them and also all the other family that gathered together for their visit. Hopefully soon they'll be a little closer so we'll get to see them more often. :)

We've also just been loving the happy spring time weather. We've gone out on some fun rollerblading adventures along the rivertrail and such -- I'm still just loving our new stroller, especially now that Landon's gotten used to it. We found a perfect park the other day too - the old Oakridge school is being used for some Wasatch classes now and their playground is all fenced in and open to everybody after school hours. We had a great picnic and book reading time there last week while Landon was able to run and climb and we could just relax -- very fun! :) Yesterday we got started on our garden planting prep work too in clearing out the space in our corner and all.

Hooray for these beautiful days!

And here's some cute pics too, just for fun.

Tummy time w/ Daddy

Giggles -- a few days ago she had her first giggles just at Jordan being silly (rather than from being tickled :)

Reading his book to me and Ellie

"You don't take pictures!"

Showing off his dandelion finds

Trying out the walker

Oh, what a happy girl!!

Ellie's favorite way to sleep... (she's really not so buried as she looks, but she just loves that warmth and softness on her little body!)

Monday, April 20, 2009

Oh how we love our little Ellie! She is just so happy with her little world and we're so happy to have her in our family. She is loving to look around and see everything and tell us all about it it in oohs and ehhs and ahhs, and she loves to sing along with those same sounds when we sing to her. She's getting so strong in holding herself upright and even surprised me by rolling over today when I left her on her tummy on the rug. We sure love her little smiles and giggles too!

Monday, April 13, 2009

I have a few minutes tonight while I'm putting Landon back to bed and back to bed... I know that I ought to be folding laundry (and get rid of the THREE batches of clean laundry sitting on my bedroom floor), or tidying up downstairs, or updating our budget or doing the dishes...

But Ellie fell asleep right by me here on my bed, and all I want to do is just sit and look at her.

We had our family over for Easter yesterday and while we were playing a game, Landon was "resting"... but then was left alone too long and found a sharpie... pretty much every surface in our bedroom (all the walls, window, closet, bed (sheets), door, his door and walls...) looks like this now -->

We got a little hand weeder like this a couple of years ago and that bendy part on the back gives such great leverage so it's super easy to just pop those dandelions right out. (This is one of Landon's new favorite activities -- going for dandelion hunts around the back yard w/ Mommy -- "Look Mommy! I found one!" :)

I made little Easter flower baskets like these for everyone yesterday. Just some felt cut out and hot glued on some recycled applesauce containers -- pretty cute. :) I think I originally saw the idea on TipJunkie (Another really fun find), but it was posted first here. And a delicious Hummus Recipe - from one of Jordan's favorite new cookbooks.

(I think you can click the recipe and it will enlarge, if you want to try this. :)

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Here's Landon going through his great stash of goodies from his friends pirate birthday party this afternoon (Just imagine 6 little guys running around on a treasure hunt all dressed alike in this pirate gear ...pretty cute!)

He helped me make dinner (note the apron) then went on an adventure w/ Jordan in the rain/hail -- you can't tell from the picture how many muddy puddles they had gone through but he was one messy kiddo. :)

-making "Landon ice cream sandwiches" and wrestling w/ Daddy --

Singing Ellie the ABC's--

And this little girl just watching and watching and trying to figure out what this Landon is up to! :)

Landon has been doing a stellar job w/ potty training -- much better than I ever hoped! :) We'd tried once last week and realized we needed to devote at least an entire day when Jordan could help out w/ Ellie too -- so Saturday was the big day. We rolled back the rug, said goodbye to the diapers and filled Landon up w/ juice boxes and reward fruit snacks and lots of claps and "Hoorays!" And he did a great job! A couple accidents the first morning and one on Sunday but days 3, 4 and 5 have been accident-free! Hooray for Landon! We've still put diapers on him for naptime/night-time but so far, he's so excited to get up and tell us he has to go potty, that he's only even needed them once. (However, the one down side has been that it takes about an hour and a half to put him to bed, because for some reason from about 8:00 to 9:30, it's way more fun to go potty than stay in bed...) We're so excited though for our great potty-training boy!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

This little one is just filling our home w/ sweetness and happiness these days! Such a precious little spirit she's got. I'll set her in her bouncer by the table while Landon and I eat breakfast and every time I look at her she just smiles and wiggles her little body w/ such delight! I love these wiggles - like the happiness is just bursting out! She also loves to sit and have cooing conversations w/ us -- especially Jordan. And, she's getting so tough in handling Landon's love too!

I saw somebody make a wreath by painting some of the bright plastic eggs and wanted to try it out -- if you look too close, mine kind of just look like I painted those bright plastic eggs... but it was a fun try and they still look cute and Easter-y on our fireplace. :)

Last night, Jordan was sitting w/ Landon in bed and telling him stories. For some reason, Landon kept trying to push Jordan off of the bed (Jordan thought he was just being cranky of something). After a little bit, Jordan finally stopped and said "Landon, what can you do to be nice to Daddy? Show me what you can do to be nice." In response, Landon sweetly asked,

"Please can I push you off the bed Daddy?"

How can you argue with that? :)

I was in nursery w/ Landon last week when they had a lesson about temples. The teacher held up a picture of a temple and asked what it was -- Landon said "That's the temple! My mommy and daddy need to remember to go the temple!"

A few days later, we drove past the Provo library (which Landon always thinks is a temple because it's such a tall and beautiful building :) and again Landon said "The temple! Mommy and Daddy, you need to remember to go to the temple!" I don't know where he got this, but it was a good little reminder for us! :)

We've finally started working on potty-training for Landon and decided to dedicate Saturday entirely to Conference and Potty-training. I've been prepping Landon for this super exciting day when he gets to go potty all day! and get his cars fruit snacks and his big boy underwear... he's pretty pumped for all the excitement :) -- This morning though, I saw that he didn't quite understand what I was talking about every time I told him about Saturday being a 'potty-training' day. Right after we talked about it, he said to me,

"On Saturday my potty train can go on my track and I will say choo choo!"

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Why 'Tuesday Flowers' ?

When we first started dating in college, Jordan left me flowers at work in a beautiful little blue-green vase with a note, "Tuesdays are for flowers, don't you know?" More than 10 years later, Tuesdays are still for flowers and they are such a bright and happy part of life!